McClellan,
GEORGE BRINTON, military officer ; born in Philadelphia, Dec.
3, 1826; graduated at West Point in 1846; was lieutenant of sappers,
miners, and pontoniers in the war against Mexico, and was commended for
gallantry at various points from
Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. After
the war he was instructor of bayonet exercise at West Point, and his
Manual, translated from the French, became the text-book of the service.
In 1852 he was engaged with Capt. Randolph B. Marcy (afterwards his
father-in-law) and Gen. C. F. Smith in explorations and surveys of Red
River, the harbors of
Texas, and the western part of a proposed route
for a Pacific railway; also mountain ranges and the most direct route to
Puget's Sound. He was next sent on a secret mission to Santo Domingo;
and in 1855 he was sent with Majors Delafield and Mordecai to Europe to
study the organization of European armies

General George McClellan

and
observe the war in the Crimea. Captain McClellan left the army in 1857
and engaged in civil engineering and as superintendent of railroads. He
was residing in Ohio when the
Civil War broke out, and was commissioned major-general of Ohio
volunteers by the governor. He took command of all the troops in the
Department of the Ohio; and after a brief and successful campaign in
western Virginia, was appointed to the command of the National troops on
the Potomac (afterwards the Army of the Potomac) and commissioned a
major-general of the regular army. On the retirement of
General Scott in
November, 1861, he was made general-in-chief. His campaign against
Richmond in 1862 with the Army of the Potomac was not successful. He
afterwards drove
General Lee out of Maryland, but his delay in pursuing the
Confederates caused him to be superseded in command by General Burnside.
General McClellan was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for
President of the United States against Mr. Lincoln in 1864 (see below).
He resigned his commission in the army on the day of the election, Nov.
8, and took up his residence in New York. After a visit to Europe, he
became (1868) a citizen of New Jersey, and engaged in the business of an
engineer. The will of Edward A. Stevens, of Hoboken, made him
superintendent of the Stevens floating battery; and he was appointed
superintendent of docks and piers in the city of New York, which office
he resigned in 1872. In 1877 he was elected governor of New Jersey. He
died in Orange, N. J., Oct. 29, 1885.

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